My name is Camille Hayward and I was invited to speak today on behalf of this year’s Stewardship Campaign. I am a lifelong Church goer, a longtime Sunday School teacher–since my freshman year in college, more or less–and now, a new member of Epiphany’s Vestry. I am honored to be asked to share about the value I now place on being a part of this specific parish.
Having been a part of this community since approximately 2010, I have grown familiar with the way in which the seasons roll round. At Epiphany, we wend our mutual way through the liturgical year, It begins each late November (or early December) with the first Sunday in Advent and moves through the rhythms of Christmas and Epiphany as we look to see Jesus rapidly growing from “infant in the manger” to his adult baptism in the Jordan River. Before many more weeks have gone by, it is time that we start sobering up for Lent. So we do. We carry on, heads bent toward Easter and the annual ringing out of Resurrection. The wheel keeps turning. We turn with it.
This “We” that I speak of goes beyond the initial twelve. The pronoun encompasses more than the early established faithful. It incorporates the crowd assembled in the Upper Room. Each season of Pentecost, we wait with them, confined together in anticipation. Each season of Pentecost, we, with them, are met by the Holy Ghost’s arrival. And when He comes, even though it is expected, we may find it altogether unexpected as He brings both wildness and gentleness, chaos and beauty. Such confusion in a packed-in space–what language am I hearing that I do not know?- What strange wonder of consonance–how can I know this language that I never until now knew? Before we know it, we, as they, are set out into the far, far reaches of the earth, because, well, you know, and I know it too, we as they, we are the Church.
This “We” that I speak of goes beyond the initial twelve. The pronoun encompasses more than the early established faithful.
(I learned a song I learned a song early on in my volunteering here. It was here at Epiphany’s Vacation Bible School. The youngest children learned it that summer from Kathea Yarnell. I am the Church. You are the Church. We are the Church together. All who follow Jesus, All around the world–yes! We are the Church together.)
At Epiphany, we tabulate time like this: the third Sunday after Pentecost…the seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost, and so forth, until here we are, the twenty first Sunday after Pentecost. We have arrived at Stewardship Season–not a liturgical practice per se, but an annual ritual nonetheless, this one more of housekeeping, true, yet unquestionably essential.
I was asked to say why I choose to give each year. Simply stated, I prioritize this place over all other institutions that I give to. It wasn’t always this way. During the pandemic, I knew that every art organization and environmental group and social justice cause was seeking monies to fulfil each worthy mission, but I knew, also, that the circle of givers to arts organizations and environmental groups and social justice causes is broader at our time in this society’s history than the group that supports the Church. So I moved my giving to the Church to the Center. I continue to care for and give to support the arts and I donate to environmental causes and contribute to centers of social justice, But now I give both tithes and offerings to Epiphany.
I give “most of what I give” to Epiphany because each week I am invited into its open doors. Whenever I approach the building, I enter a House that I am a part of. I notice how it is cared for. I am given a greeting and handed a bulletin with an Order of Service that has been carefully prepared. It tells me that there will be music and prayer and reading and speaking. I come into a space that allows me to be left alone, if that is what I need, or to be welcomed, if that is what I need.
I give to Epiphany because I am cared for here. When my father died, I received flowers, arranged and delivered by Alice Foreman. When I signed up to be in a small group, about ten years ago, I found vulnerability and acceptance and friendship.
I give to Epiphany because I am moved by the line in the hymn, “All who love and serve your city…”; and I think of how much I love this section of that truly eternal city and in doing so, realize that I also want to serve it. And then I think of the stained glass window between the chapel and the larger sanctuary and its quote from the Bible: I would rather be a doorkeeper in your house, in other words, I would rather stand at the entrance of this place than be left out altogether. “For a day in your courts…” the verse began by saying, “is better than a thousand anywhere else”.
I continue to care about other institutions, too, of course. Given my particular history and experience, I care about schools and camps. In the good work of these institutions, children and youth are accepted and stretched to be their best selves. I need a place more like a camp–mine was on a lake–not that far from here, one I returned to season after season; given a week away, I was set for a whole year back in the normal way of things, Or maybe, more like a school–I went to many of them as a young person, and in each one I found something of importance that got me to where I was eventually going to go. Still, now, way past that starting out time of life, I need a place like that. because I need a place where I am valued just because I am. I still have the same need to be accepted and I still have just as much a need to be stretched. Ideally, I will find both of these in tandem. This will be essential for me to stay alive and eager and to continue to grow to be my best self.
I give to Epiphany because, as Doyt quoted in early September, reciting John Donne, “No man is an island…”. I sometimes imagine a nameless urbanity, one without belfries or steeples. I see the architecture made horizontal. No vertical aspiration attempts to stretch up or go beyond the tier of human reach. I see an economic center where not one thing is given. Everything has a price point. The landscape is low lying. There is no architectural reminder of the Divine. When I imagine this– I don’t have to fully imagine– because whenever I see a church building no longer housing a congregation, I see this whole image played out in its flat entirety.
I give to Epiphany Because I am selective. I want to give a regular portion of what I have earned To a place That demands of me A higher purpose That keeps me in synch With the rhythm Of the liturgy And the circle of the lectionary And the teachings of Jesus And the poetry of the Psalms And the great and complex stories of our faith.
I want to give To a place That is unashamedly Christian: Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ on my right, Christ on my left.
I want to give to a place That holds the door open Sunday after Sunday, Liturgical season after liturgical season, That keeps the lights on And lends a hand And teaches well And welcomes the child And the aged And the Stranger And the Believer And the Seeker And the Lonely To a place That knows That really, really knows That the “We” of which we speak goes beyond the initial twelve.
Each of us today is called to receive and to give because the pronoun encompasses more than just the early established faithful. And, when we look around, we cannot help but see that when it is All of Us together that it is then that we will be most able to truly “love and serve your city”.